Corporate Strategy
Corporate Strategy
Strategy Is Medicine
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We bring Brooklyn Jones back as our first on-camera guest and unpack why the word strategy makes smart people groan, then map the real issue to trust and plain-English leadership. We also draft the worst meeting formats and leave with practical scripts for getting strategic work done without triggering the eye roll.
• Brooklyn’s life updates and graduating back into entrepreneurship
• The top “worst meetings” draft and why they drain teams
• Strategy as medicine and why people resist it
• Trust and shame as the hidden blockers behind “execution problems”
• Goals versus strategy and why jargon breaks buy-in
• Problem-first thinking and simple strategy models that stick
• Tactics for reducing pushback: don’t say “strategy,” repeat complaints verbatim, start small, lead with subtraction
• Cascading strategy by audience and communicating up and down the org
Check out Brooklyn's links here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brooklynsmithveteran
Business websites
https://www.strategycapable.com/
https://www.bespokemovingconcierge.com/
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Welcome And Guest Vibe Check
SPEAKER_01Welcome back to Corporate Strategy, the podcast that could have been an email. I'm Anthony. And I'm Michael.
SPEAKER_00And we have a guest, our first live human being guest. First one on camera. This is a huge moment for corporate strategy. I can't believe it.
SPEAKER_01Uh Monroe, you've been on the podcast before, but no one's seen you. No one knows who you are. Would you like to unveil yourself?
SPEAKER_04Yes. I will add an RIP name to the pile. Brooke Monroe. Get her out of here. Brooklyn Jones, and a lot of people may know me as Brooklyn Smith. Recently married. Well within the last year. So thank you. So yeah, Brooklyn Jones. Hi, everyone. Nice.
SPEAKER_00Welcome back to you. This is this is what you've been part of our community for like over three years now, probably. Yeah. Yeah. Which is crazy because your episode, yeah, was in 2024. And I can't believe it's been that long since you've come on. And we're you're just gonna, I told you you're gonna take my job. I think I purposefully kept you off the podcast so you wouldn't take my job. Everybody would be like, get rid of Clark, get rid of Michael, get Brooklyn on here.
SPEAKER_03Well, hopefully I'll live up to it.
SPEAKER_01Oh, already. This is gonna be the next just best episode, 10 out of 10. I can I can feel it. Uh, I wanted to check in. Well, actually, Michael has a fun activity. I just wanted to check in. You know, it's been 2024. I cannot believe it's been that long. It literally feels like it was like a couple of months ago. You know, you mentioned you got married. How how are things going? Vibe check, how are you doing?
SPEAKER_04Vibe check. I am riding a life high right now, to be perfectly honest. Uh, so like I said, got married. Actually, the last 18 months or so, I've tried to fit in as many life events as I possibly could. So moved states since we last spoke and then moved again. Uh, got married, had another daughter. She's 10 months now. She just started walking last week. So now I'm literally being kept on my toes. And um I was in corporate. This podcast actually helped me get into corporate using a corporate strategy. And now I have, I feel like graduated, at least that's how I how I take it, into returning to entrepreneurship. So I have another couple of companies that I launched last month. Um and it's been winding road, but I feel really good about right now. Um, and I think that's because the first time I was in business, yes to everything figure it out mode. And now I get to like enjoy the journey, the meaningful journey. I know what good feels like along the way, and that's honestly something I didn't think I'd be able to have after the first rodeo. So good space, good space right now.
SPEAKER_01I am uh, I don't know about you, Michael. Uh, every time we have a guest on the podcast recently, they have like an entire my life arc in like a seven-month span. I could never do any of this stuff. So congrats, congrats to you.
SPEAKER_00Uh still here incredible, just doing my thing. Yeah, we Anthony is here just hanging out, but uh, we're all having life arcs that are happening around him. So, you know, we're we're lapping him, but he's fine, you know, he's doing his thing, but no, that's awesome. Congratulations. He has so many moves, and yeah, I love the term graduated back into entrepreneurship because I feel like I graduated this year out of corporate, and I love that term. It's like everyone's like, Oh, you decided to leave corporate. It's like, no, no, no. I graduated from corporate and now I'm on to bigger and better things.
SPEAKER_04Yes. I like I would like a different set of people telling me what to do now. Thanks.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. I love that. I love that because you you have a history. Um, I went, I told you before this, I went back and listened to our last episode because you're remarkably consistent, which I love. Like I was listening to your terminology of like say yes to everything, and that's how you, you know, went from military to corporate and ended up getting uh you know kind of a corporate strategist job. And you just use that same terminology, which I love because in entrepreneur entrepreneurship, that that's what I feel like I'm doing all the time. It's always like yes and like what else can I do for you as one of my clients? Are you, I guess, with so many different life changes, are you balancing and finding a balance between everything yet? Or is it just like every day something new?
SPEAKER_04Honestly, it has balance is a little bit of a fallacy, but it has the balance that I have chosen in this season. I will say it that way. Um, it is interesting because some people hear like, oh, you launched two businesses at the same time. Like, yes, but they balance each other. So I didn't just start two of something and then hope for the best. One is very familiar, one is newer territory. And this time around, I have a supportive partner, my husband, that I can communicate with and practice boundary setting with, and somebody keep me accountable that lives with me and 100% will keep me accountable, um, even if I don't want him to. So uh it's a it's a practice of uh drinking my own Kool-Aid. How am I setting boundaries? How do I decide what is taking the lead? Because everything can't lead at once, prioritizing and then um complaining a little bit and then wondering why it's not working, and then remembering that I should be continuing to drink my own Kool-Aid and make better decisions. Um I would say right now the balance that we have struck is going well. And then as it evolves and changes, um, ask him in six months if he thinks I did a good job at balancing everything, but I choose to believe it's going well. Yeah, I would think that's a good idea.
SPEAKER_00Your partner, yeah, yeah, your partner in entrepreneurship. Like having your like my wife is the same thing that your husband is to you. It's like she's always keeping me in check. She lets me know. She's like, you know, you worked on this for this long, man. Like, didn't even realize that. And like having someone there is so, so important to like help you find that balance and be able to also balance everything else in life at the same time. So I love that. That's awesome. Congratulations on so many things.
SPEAKER_04Thank you. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_01Now, Michael, I know you wanted to do this, so let's do
Drafting The Worst Meetings
SPEAKER_01this.
SPEAKER_00I'm so excited. I know I'm so excited to do this. We've been doing this. I don't know if people are loving it, but I'm loving it. So we're gonna continue to do it because I force Anthony to do whatever I say on this podcast, which is the best. So I figured since we have our guest here today, we would do instead of the top three for the sake of time, because we have more important things to talk about, we would do the top two meetings that are the worst. The worst types of meetings. You can do corporate, you can do entrepreneurship, whatever you're feeling is right. But I figured that'd be a fun thing that we'll do a little snake walkthrough. Whoever's last has to pick twice, and then we'll go backwards, if that makes sense. Who wants to go first? I can go first.
SPEAKER_03I'll go first.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna start the podcast. All right, dude.
SPEAKER_04Coming in hot at the circle back meeting. Everybody in that room knows exactly what decision they want to make, and they're just not wanting to tell somebody else what that is for whatever the fear is, whatever the reasons are that we've created this story in our head. But um, yeah, circling back to have a conversation and rehashing whatever the thing is, um, makes I'd rather clap my own eyes out.
SPEAKER_00That is an awesome pick. I love that. Just the word circle back. It's one of those things. Yeah, everybody just tried to like waste their time to not have to talk about that thing. And then to have to actually do it, you're just like, oh, everyone's dreading it. Great pick. Great pick. All right, Anthony, you want to go second? You want me to? I have to go twice.
SPEAKER_01I have a hyper-specific one. Uh, it's my absolute least favorite meeting of all time ever. It is the I didn't show up to your feedback review, but still want a feedback review meeting. And let me tell you, the people that do that belong in a special kind of prison. Uh, they should never be let out. And I promise you, when they show up to that meeting to give you feedback, they're gonna say the opposite of what every other single person you've talked to has told you. They're gonna they're gonna try and sabotage everything you want to do. They they are they're unwell, very unwell people.
SPEAKER_04But uh, Anthony, why didn't you ask them for their feedback three months ago when you sent an email?
SPEAKER_01But I did. They chose not to give it and they chose not to show up.
SPEAKER_00Must have been caught in a filter. Sorry, Anthony. I missed it. It must have been junk spam filter.
SPEAKER_04It's it's exactly where your same company domain email went to spam. I don't know what happened.
SPEAKER_00All right, I get two. I've I'm at the bottom of the snake, so I get two, then Anthony and Brooklyn to finish us off. All right, first pick. And this one might be controversial. I hate company all hands. Whoa. I just I don't love it. I just get into them and it just feels like fluff and show. And sometimes the leaders just are not good public speakers in front of everybody, and it's just painful. Everyone's sitting there like, do we did we need to do this? Or could you have just given us a free lunch and some desserts and we could have called it a day? Personal take?
SPEAKER_04Uh yes, it can be good when done well because I love it as a transparency tool and to create an artifact. Not for the meeting itself, but for the artifact afterward. That's true. Um, but when you start making the QA Slido Um from anonymous to log in with all of your credentials, please, first, um, and then we're cherry-picking questions, that's when I start to agree with you there. I would have to say.
SPEAKER_01You know, I'm gonna be the weird one. This this might surprise both of you, actually. I used to not like audience meetings. Um I haven't finished. I haven't finished. My team hates them. Uh my team's very technical. They do not like them, they think they're a waste of time. And for me, I think it's the marketer inside of me. I like to see what the executives are messaging because that directly influences the stories I go tell to like PR, AR, and things like that. So uh it's not that they're good, it's that I find them informative. It's a good way for me to gauge the temperature, to pick up some of the new lingo that execs might be putting out there. And then I'm working that into my own spin. So uh a little bit of a sicko for doing that, but I see them as more of a gauge of people I don't generally talk to and see what they're saying.
SPEAKER_04Information is information.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it just depends on what kind of the delivery, you know. You've changed. I don't even know who you are anymore based on what you just said.
SPEAKER_01I also belong in a special kind of prism.
SPEAKER_00We used to always, uh, when we did work together, we used to always like it just dread the all hands. We'd all show up, little little nerds working on whatever we were working on at the time, a little click. We'd show up, walk in the door, hide in the back for like five minutes, and then get out after that. I don't know. For me, just I've never seen it done super well. All right, all right, I'll go to my second. This is kind of a cop-out, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Ad hoc meetings, like anything that's not planned. That's just like you just toss in random time a day. It's like a Tuesday, and they're like, hey, let's meet at 3:30. Like, let's work through this. And it's like, but I had like plans for 30 minutes from now, and I had other meetings for 30 minutes by now, and I just maybe it's just because I'm type A and I like to be organized, but those kill me and they kill my productivity, they force you to you know lose or have more cognitive load because you're going from subject to subject back to it's just I hate them. I need a plan.
SPEAKER_01I agree. I agree with you. Yeah, okay. You got all right, full of line.
SPEAKER_00Like working in different companies now, I see it where they love like the constant collaboration across their teams. They're always like ad hoc meeting, and I'm just like, I just I just can't, guys. I need I need this plan like a week from now.
SPEAKER_04I'm about to say, and for the neurospicy people or those that need specific instructions, ad hoc is the same day. I don't care if you gave me two hours notice, and arguably maybe even the day before. It depends on what it is. But um, or you put it on the calendar and you didn't tell me what it was for. Just hey, real quick. Also equally is vile. No.
SPEAKER_00I agree. Straight to jail. A meeting with no with no subject, with no objective, with nothing in the body, straight to jail. Not allowed. I apparently I need to go to jail. Uh you do. You're an all-hands fan, you don't put meeting objectives in there, you schedule an ad hoc, you're going to jail for sure.
SPEAKER_04Now listen, if if if if you know you know, and then you're talking to somebody and you're really key keying on the clock. Uh that one with no subject and agenda, fine. Collaboration title, perfectly fine. Only exception to that rule.
SPEAKER_01There we go. Okay. Agreement. Agreement. So, my uh, this is not a type of meeting, it's an it's an uh outcome of a meeting. You scheduled an hour, we've accomplished the goal in 15 minutes, and you're going to run it the entire hour.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Doesn't matter what it is. Those people are psychopaths. 100% straight to jail.
SPEAKER_04Honorable mention there are three minutes left, and you're going to spend that three minutes giving us three minutes back.
SPEAKER_01Oh, how nice. How nice.
SPEAKER_00I appreciate that. I can actually go get some more water before my next meeting. It's not enough time.
SPEAKER_01It's not enough time to fill the cup. It's just enough time to do nothing before the next one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I it is a it is such a blessing when you get into a meeting that was scheduled for 30 minutes or an hour and you're done in 10 minutes. Like, all right, cool guys. I'll see you later. And like you get all that time back. You're like, this is the best. I got so much time for activities. What am I gonna do with this extra hour of my life now? It's fantastic. All right, take us home. Last one.
SPEAKER_04All right. So I had plenty of time to think of another answer while you all were talking, and I was way too excited about what you had to say. Uh so I'll try, I'll try and think of a business one. I've been doing a lot of purposeful relationship building, some people call it networking, um, just throughout the summer. And meeting with people who have taken the action of giving you their time, but are upset about the fact that they gave you their time. Like we're in a conversation. There's they're not present in the conversation or they seem like visibly irritated that they're not elsewhere. Like, oh my gosh, please go be elsewhere. Like it's fine. Like, I want you to want to be here. Um, and so I and I'm not even upset about people like, no, I really don't network, I don't have time for that. Like, awesome.
SPEAKER_00That's that is a great one. I had one of those, yeah, recently where I was networking with somebody and uh I love also what what term did you use? Uh instead of networking.
SPEAKER_04Instead of networking? Oh, I just it was like uh intentional relationship building.
SPEAKER_00Intentional relationship building.
SPEAKER_04I you know, a name that I came up with before right now.
SPEAKER_00That was so that was so good. But I just got I had one of those a few weeks ago, and the person was just on their phone the whole time. Like, oh, I gotta take a call. I'm like, like, why are we should we have not done this at this time? And like I'm I'm right there with you. I would rather someone flat out someone, hey, sorry, I'm just too busy. Like, try again, maybe in three months, and we'll see when connects. That is an absolutely okay answer to me. I'm like, fine, that's totally cool. Like, no worries. And if you just don't want to connect, that's cool too. You know, we both save some time.
SPEAKER_01I I just don't. I don't understand. The it's I feel like this is probably an American issue where the American is too unwilling to be like rude enough to say, I don't want to go to your meeting, I don't want to have a meeting with you, but is not not rude enough to be completely disinterested the entire time. Like if we were European, they'd just be like, no meeting. No.
SPEAKER_04The Midwest nice, yeah, with cryptic bless your hearts from the south and exactly and East Coast attitude when they show up just all over the map.
SPEAKER_01That is exactly it. Yes.
SPEAKER_00We did it.
SPEAKER_01Top two. Are you satisfied, Michael? Did you get what you wanted?
SPEAKER_00I'm so sad. That is exactly what I wanted. So thank you guys. And having a guest on just so much better. It does. Thank you for letting me surprise you with the topic.
SPEAKER_04You're welcome. I'll allow it.
SPEAKER_01Well,
Why Strategy Makes People Groan
SPEAKER_01uh, Brooklyn, you came to us with a topic. Not only did you say you wanted to be on the show, but you came to us with a topic that I think is actually I'm excited because I don't feel comfortable with it. And that's always when I get like the most interested to have a conversation. So walk us through it. What are you thinking?
SPEAKER_04Yes. Um, I'm glad you're uncomfortable because so am I. Yeah. Um being in strategy, or I'll say I'll say it differently. In all of our respective professions or what we practice, we are the most familiar with it and we think it's the best thing since sliced bread. You know, we're a hammer, everything's a nail. And it's very easy to have the unconscious bias with that. For me, that shows up with strategy. I've been doing strategic adjacent strategy, whatever you want to call it, for the last 13 years. And so it's difficult for me to understand when someone else doesn't understand that something is a strategy problem. And so with that in mind, when I watched my business, I was like, let's put strategy in the name. We're gonna promote it like it's strategy. And then I had one really good conversation where they were like, Yeah, I know that's people hate strategy. Like it really made me that one piece of feedback is a gift, it's fine. Um, it really made me think about all of the other situations when we're trying to push something forward, we're trying to accomplish a goal and why it was so difficult. Like, why is it so hard for people to grasp? And then it just took acknowledging that strategy is like medicine, and sometimes you need a spoonful of sugar. And so my hope for this topic was to address like why? Why is it medicine? Why do people quite frankly hate it and not want to deal with it? And it can be the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about because they're either being nice about it or your whole job is strategy and they have to work with you. Um, and so the whole thing that I have found, or as I'm, you know, have been working through some things this summer was usually um it's not only back up. People experience pain as just the pain. It comes from symptoms. And just like when you go to the doctor, they have to understand what the symptoms are before they can diagnose. And the solution to that, the what the practitioner um wants to provide you, there's an answer, but you need to first feel heard and those symptoms need to be addressed, and so it needs to be packaged in a way that addresses the symptoms, even if what you're really getting is the thing you didn't really want to mess with in the first place. And so a lot of times there's a misconception around that. Um, you know, it can be showing up as an execution problem, but really it's a trust problem wrapped in a communications nightmare, cosplaying as an execution problem, tactics fix execution, strategy fixes trust. And so that's something I've been toying with, and I would love to dive into this with you all.
SPEAKER_01So I'm a I'm a metaphor man. Yeah. Like I love me a good metaphor. And when you said strategy is medicine, even when you message me, I'm like, I don't know if I get it. And now you've now you've got me thinking, you know, like every time you get sick, you go to the doctor, you take antibiotics, they're like, don't stop taking these before you run through the entire bottle, whatever the prescription is, because you will get more sick, or you'll get a different kind of sick, or you'll create a worse strand. And like now, I'm just making the alignment here with when a company creates a strategy. New CEO comes in, here's the vision, here's the three-year strategy, and they pivot it seven months into something else. The company gets more sick because you you haven't followed through on the long-term plan. Like strategy, like you said, people want to be tactical. They want to, I want to change something tomorrow and it's gonna be fixed forever, and it's great. And it's like that's not how businesses work, they're like titanic boats. It takes forever to turn them. Like a strategy takes time, it takes pain, takes the pill every day until you're through the whole bottle, and then you will see a change. But I mean, you just you just unlock something in my brain there. So uh I'm I'm loving this already.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely. And I don't know if you all have seen it, and especially like you even just say the word strategy that people visibly shrink, they've audibly groan, and then you get the most candid feedback that you have ever gotten. And I am including more candid than when you ask for the candid feedback, you get all of it in that moment, and so um arguably it's time to address it instead of just trying to brute force it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like I feel like one of the main reasons that people have this sentiment towards strategy is just because it doesn't always make sense, and people just aren't bought in on what it is because they don't understand, either they don't understand or they don't. Understand how they can play a part in it. That's at least what I've seen throughout my career is either it's way too macro, and everybody like 90% of the company is like, I just don't think I play a part in this at all because the leader does a bad job of distilling down to their leaders and their leaders and their leaders of like this is the part you play in the vision. We need you to play this part. You're a critical cog and the machine that's gonna help us execute on the strategy. I feel like that trickle down is lost in middle management. And the direction to the team and empowerment to the team to actually drive that piece isn't there. So when you talk about strategy, just like it doesn't matter. The whole company is gonna pivot next month anyway. And I don't really think anything we're doing is consequential to that strategy in the first place. Like that's where my head typically goes, is they just feel like they're not connected to the strategy. I don't know if you guys feel that way, but I I see that all the time at companies that I work with. It's like the people actually doing the work just don't feel like they're connected.
SPEAKER_04Definitely.
Trust, Shame, And Leadership Clarity
SPEAKER_04And that's I think whenever I was sitting with it for a good while, trust kept bubbling up and trust alongside shame. And I'll I'll say more about that. So interesting. It is a trust problem at its core, and there's a few different ways that that trust problem can really rear its head. Either you don't trust your team or company doesn't trust leadership, they don't trust you, they don't trust each other, or in worst case scenario, they don't trust themselves. And that's where the the shame really comes from. Because if you're not able to, to your point, communicate that vision, there's this either self-imposed expectation or told expectation that as a leader, they have to have, they're setting the vision. They're they're the the not the thermometer, they're the thermostat, they're setting the tone for the room the room. And so imagine having that person um not being able to admit to themselves that they don't have clarity and then ask them to be vulnerable in front of others and say that they don't know in a room full of people that are expecting them to have the answer. Um, at a very fundamental level, that shame is gonna over human behavior is gonna override any amount of tactic or strategy. And so I think you're absolutely right. It shows up a lot and it isn't necessarily I have not heard it talked about very much as an issue of trust. It's more usually I hear it in terms of transparency or the communication or something like that. Um, but I don't know, trust maybe that can get a little too woo-woo for some people, but I mean, truly, it's if you don't somebody's not transparent with you, are you gonna trust them? You know, it's it's expectations that are known, expectations that are met, and then repeated over time to build that trust. And so in order to set expectations that requires knowing what you want in the first place. And if nobody's done that part, then that's where you run into that challenge. That's where strategy is that decision filter. It's criteria for yes, criteria for no. Um, and then being able to communicate that. And I mean, Michael, you working with AI, I'm sure you run into people who are like, ah, it'll fix all the things and replace all of the all of the each. And you're like, well, great at doing what you tell it to do, but it doesn't read your mind. I don't, yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00And I think that's the that's the biggest issue to all this. When you talk about trust, I I love that you brought up that angle of this because that is largely what it comes down to. Like just thinking through it of the best leaders that I've seen set the vision, but basically say, hey, you guys are the team executing it. How do we get there? And they look at the leaders to put together the plan to figure it out. The worst leaders that I've seen, and Anthony, you and I saw this at uh at Big Corp back in the day, they are super specific on exactly how everything should go. So much so that they're attending like engineering meetings and the CEOs telling the team what to do. And that's that's a layer of trust that just completely breaks any autonomy, any empowerment from the team, any feeling like they're trusted to deliver on the results and help the company. And so I think it really comes from the top down of like if the way they're stating their mission is open-ended and it's saying, hey guys, I don't know how to do this, but we as a team are gonna figure it out. That is going to build that trust. That is gonna get everybody on board rather than saying, guys, you gotta launch a new product, it's gonna deliver X percent increase in revenue year over year. And this is exactly how it needs to look and feel. Like the whole team's gonna be like, I'm out.
SPEAKER_01Well, and it just, I think part of the problem in general is so many people use the word strategy willy-nilly. They'll just name a podcast corporate strategy and think like they're doing big work. And the the same is true for leaders at the top, right? They'll come out with like, here's the big strategy, all caps with, you know, Comic Sands bolded font, but they haven't thought things through, right? Like you can't have trust and you can't have transparency if you don't have answers to basic questions, right? Like a strategy can't be, we're raising our ebada by 20% this year. It's like people don't even know what that means or how to say it. Like that that's not a strategy, that's just a goal. And I I think largely in corporate people confuse, I think tactics are pretty easy, right? Because like tactics are the small things we do every day. Tactics is hey, I'm I'm gonna create a new Jira project to manage this thing, and it's gonna be great. Strategy and goal, I think often become confused because it's so easy to be like, here's a really big goal. This is our strategy moving forward. It's like, you just gave us an outcome you're chasing, but no steps of execution to get there. So then you ask the question, like, hey, how are we doing this? And they're like, please don't ask any more questions on the all hands. And also, why do you like going to all hands? So it just becomes this conflated problem, right? Like it's uh it's a word that is used often, but I feel like people just don't get it. And that that leads to the transparency and trust problems, is we're we're using the word wrong, and then people look at them like, oh, they don't they seem shifty. It's like maybe they're shifty and they have no idea what's going on.
SPEAKER_03It's a glorified vision board, yeah, exactly. Not a set of criteria.
SPEAKER_00That's exactly it. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know if you guys see this too. Like just going from the other angle, because I agree with what you're saying, Anthony. It's often, and I don't know if this is a problem with the personality of a leader or just a problem with the experience when they're put in a CEO or leadership of the company position. But I feel like I'm working with a few leaders now that just seem like they're just top-notch. And like the the stuff that they're like, sometimes I'm just lost in the conversation. I'm like, I don't even understand the terms that we're using right now. And is it because you're genuinely like so far detached from the day-to-day that you're at another, you're executing on another level? Or is it just that you're trying to use all these things but not really sure where it's going? And a lot of the times I see leaders that use these big words or anything really rely on AI to do a lot of the day-to-day work, and they'll send you things that's all AI driven. And you can tell they spent time working with an AI agent to put it together. But what they give you, you just read it and you're just like, I just don't get it. And to me, those are the hardest leaders to help execute on a strategy because you just can't talk at a human level of like, I'm just trying to understand. What are we trying to do as a company? We don't need to use fancy terms, we don't need to use fancy language, like we just need to know what we are doing. And I think it would be much better for me with if leaders were just like, hey, we're not gonna be strategic this year. Here are the tactical three things we have to do. Get them done. We'll think about being strategic next year when we don't burn or go bankrupt and burn this company into a ground next year. Like, I would much rather that be the strategy of like, hey guys, this is a time and place. We got six months, otherwise, we're all losing our jobs. Like, you you guys gotta figure this out. We need to do these three things. Like, to me, that would be the best thing to hear because it's so transparent. And the best leaders I've worked with have always done that. Of like, hey, these are the three top things we have to do. I'm not the one doing them, you guys are. You tell me how we're gonna get there. And they that's the trust, they establish that with you. And I think that's what it all comes down to. And most companies, unfortunately, why I think strategy is a roll-your eyes topic, they just don't have leadership that communicates in a plain English way. Yeah, says exactly what you said, Brooklyn, of like, hey, I don't really know how we're gonna get here, but we're gonna figure out how to do it together. And I'm gonna trust on everybody's expertise to help us build that strategy so they bring the group along with them. And that's what's missing, whether it's in the middle management or top layer. There's usually that gap. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04The people who've noticed that it's needed, the people who really need the strategy most, usually have the least amount of permission and authority to ask for it. Like to your point, like you just represented an entire segment or layer of people that feel the exact same way. And usually when there is a problem, like the way that you've described in their leadership, alongside that comes with a lack of accountability. Or if somebody brings something to them, it's you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, they're gonna be like, okay, am I still gonna have a job if I raise this question in the all hands to your point, Anthony? So, like, you know, it's and I also think on the other end, it's that nobody necessarily resists the plan. They resist being told that they were lost in the first place. Um, a lot of this comes down to in my experience, human behavior, and it gets dressed up to your point in those fancy terms. And wanting a return on investment, I will say this and and I accept all the hot water that I'll be in. When you're hiring big core strategy management consulting, you pay $5 six figure, you want to see a return on that investment. So you want to use what you're being given. If what you are being given is a snapshot in time and uses a string of words that you may or may not know what they mean, it is highly probable that you're gonna use and mirror that language because you're implementing. And for those who are listening and not watching, I just did heavy air quotes. Um implementing this speak, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's effective. So whenever I was looking at, okay, how do I want to approach strategy? Um, I've seen it in a lot of different lenses. For me, it's strategy capable. How are we coming in and coaching leaders to not only think strategically but behave strategically and communicate in a way that does exactly what you were just saying? Make it simple, make it plain language, do the thing because that's where it's gonna get somewhere and be capable to be able to navigate when things change, because they will, it's not if. Um, and seeing it as
Strategy Versus Goals Plus AI Slop
SPEAKER_04something that is living, breathing, evolving, and sitting with leadership that can really be empowering if you can get over the hump of expectations, whether they're self-imposed or not.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00I've seen this time and time again where yeah, big management firm, big consulting firm comes in, and what you made me think about when you were talking through kind of the different levels of trust and how people work together. It's it's trying to be in touch with reality too. I've seen this over and over again where the management consulting company comes in, they're like, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this. And it's like, dude, people can't even like upload configurations to our tool today without it bricking. Like, how about we focus on actually letting them use our product first before we think about rebuilding something completely new? And obviously, our tech and skills and capabilities on our team are not at the level of what you even want. So I feel like the recommendations from a new leader from a management company are always just out of touch with like the reality of your business.
SPEAKER_01The the the funny thing to me, and I think I forgot to mention this to you, Michael. Uh, now that I'm product manager certified, uh, you know, I look at things through a different lens than what I used to in my Paleolithic days. But I like the thing I learned in my training that I took to get the certification was you always have to start with a problem. And it's not just for product managers, right? It's for everybody. And that problem needs to reverberate into all of your organizations. So if you're a sales-led business, like what is your problem, right? Your problem is not that you want to increase revenue by 20%, it's that you want to get more cars into the the driveways of drivers that are passionate about your vehicle, right? And that that in turn gets you that that increased revenue. But you have to be able to think in terms of problem, right? Like if there's no driveways and there's no drivers, then you're building the wrong product. And it doesn't matter what your strategy is, you're not gonna be able to achieve it. Like you have to be able to boil it down to that core problem you're looking to solve. And I I think back to when I was at big corp and when Michael was at a big corp and Brooklyn, I don't know how you feel about the big corps you've worked at, but oftentimes it feels the strategy is completely disconnected from a problem actually looking to be solved, especially across the diverse organizations you might have in the business. It might consider sales, it might consider finance, but like you start to get into product, marketing, uh like HR and things like that, you you see the strategy crumble because it's really just single-minded on a specific target rather than the big picture.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. One of my favorite things um with the prior CEO at Universal that he would talk about a lot, and this is what I think makes things so simple. He would always say, there's it's a three-legged stool. That's how simple our business is. We have team members and we take care of our team members. We pay them right, we give them training, we give them opportunities, we keep people here. In turn, they take care of our guests that come to our theme parks. They create an awesome experience because they're encouraged to do so, because they love the brand, because they're they're passionate about their jobs. And then in turn, people spend more money. So it's a self-fulfilling prophecy of if you take care of your people, they'll take care of your customers, they'll then build and return a great product. And that was so simple to under like everybody understands that, right? And that's what I think is wrong with strategy now, because it's so, especially AI has made it so much worse. Like the amount of AI slop strategy that I see, like fancy decks, fancy grass. And I'm like, I have to take 15 minutes to even understand what I'm looking at. And that's why I always go back to that example. It's like, it's three things, nothing else, three things. It's this easy. And I feel like that's a good strategy that everybody can get on board with. It's human, it's understandable, it's grounded in reality, and it just makes sense. It doesn't need some fancy deck to explain it.
SPEAKER_01Well, and you trust it too. To Birkland's earlier point, when you have something like that, it's a con it's a three-legged stool, it's a concept that holds up itself immediately. The people hearing that have trust. I see where I fit in this, I see where our customer fits in this, I see how we survive with this, I now trust the strategy. And I think like there are layers to how you build this, but yeah, trust is very important. And I think within with a strategy like it's simple, understandable, I trust it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And like the equation is A plus B equals C. It's like, okay, if I do well at my job, I create awesome experience for customers, they're gonna pay the company more money for what we deliver as a product, and therefore I have more opportunity to continue and have a job and have additional opportunities from there. Like it's such an easy equation that anybody can get on board with. And yeah, I think exactly like your topic, uh Brooklyn, as you're bringing in, I kind of want to talk about how do you do strategy well? I mean, now that you're doing this as a business and I also have an AI strategy arm that we do in our business, and it's hard because yeah, you walk into a room and you say, we're gonna help you with your AI strategy, and everyone just rolls their eyes. Like, it's not grounded reality, we're just gonna get AI sloped. Like, what's the point of this? How do you do it well?
How To Do Strategy Quietly
SPEAKER_04I think from I'll speak to a couple of different perspectives. There's the um business owner side, I'll kind of speak to our experience, Michael, and then from the inside, what do we do about it? So from that, and honestly, to your point, Anthony sitting with the problem, we have to know not even before you know what the problem is, you have to be able to identify it. To identify it, you have to know what it sounds like. And what it's not going to sound like is I have a strategy problem, please fix it. Instead, it can sound like a few different things, and I'll just kind of go down the list here. We need a better tool. Or they don't agree what the work is that needs to happen with the existing stack. Um, it can also look like we need more headcount, which is representative of we haven't decided what to stop doing, that would allow us to not have to grow in that way. Um, these two people can't get along in any meetings. Like, oh, you mean the two people that own the same outcome with absolutely no attribution? Let's talk about that. You know, leadership keeps changing direction. That speaks back to, you know, that simple being able to remember it strategy. Um, nobody's following the process. Well, the process serves a goal that nobody shares, cares about, what's in it for me? None of that is clear. And then my personal all-time favorite, and every strategist has heard it. Say it with me at home. We're just too busy to plan. We don't have time to do it, we should just be doing it, right? Well, the plan would reveal that a lot of that busy that you have going on. Again, for those listening, I was air quoting that. Um, is optional or not even necessary. It's busy work. Um, it's not intentional. So the first things first is to know what you're listening for and then listening for what it's representing. And that'll help to create the better questions to help you get to understanding what the problem is. Um, I'll pause there because I'm curious to see if that if that resonates with either of you. If you've heard some of these jump out, do they scream at you?
SPEAKER_00100%. Yeah, more than more than one, probably all in a lot of ways. And it's it's kind of rooted in and maybe it's a another one to just build on yours is yeah, they just don't know what they actually want. I mean, I think you kind of covered that one too, but I I work with a lot of companies and chasing opportunities and like you just every conversation, it's something different. What about this? And what about this? And it's like at the end of the day, some of those companies we've chosen not to work with because I'm like, I'm just not gonna chase you every time of like, if you have no clue what you want even the output to be and what your objective is, then I just can't help you. Like, that's a company problem. And so I I think I've heard that time and time again. And uh yeah, the tool one kills me because it's never about the tool, but they're like, oh, well, our current tool does enable us. I'm like, how often is it actually a tooling problem?
SPEAKER_04Oh my gosh, there's somebody who does um some amazing satirical content, uh, talking about like MCPs, APIs, and like these executives who are asking for things that just don't even line up. I'll send it to you guys after, and maybe some people get a good chuckle out of it. Um but yeah, so first step one, understand what you're listening for and then being able to interpret that. Um, step somewhere after that. Once you're in the thick of it, it's already happening. We can't go backwards and do the appropriate amount of discovery, it's fine. And also you're not alone. Um things that you can do to help mitigate some of that pushback that you'll inevitably inevitably receive. Um, just don't say the word strategy. Do the things, say the phrases and things that the strategy is doing or going to accomplish. So, for example, we need a strategy around this. Instead, you could try, you know, let's decide how we're gonna decide on this going forward. What's the decision here?
SPEAKER_00I love that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely. And like you can, you know, y'all have our decision documentation, the notorious uh spreadsheet tracker that has a name next to a thing that was decided. But what's not in that list is how did we come to that conclusion? And if somebody is in more of maybe an administrative role or an operation support role, something that they could be doing, or even if they want to just do it for themselves outside of those roles, is start to notice some of those patterns. You know, if you're using AI, use AI to identify the patterns and hope to see, like, okay, we've made the same decision with a meeting about 20 times. And the trap is, oh, so we should have a recurring meeting to make this decision. No. Please no, no, please no. Do quite the opposite. Eliminate the meeting and document how that decision is made. It now becomes a decision filter. So don't say the word strategy, just do the strategy work. Um and then uh second one, repeat the complaint verbatim before you reframe it. This is a habit that I had to learn myself. Um, people want to feel seen, feel heard before they will receive any new information. And so parroting back their exact words isn't, and we talked a little about before this, you know, it's not repetition. They heard it once, and that was somebody else giving them the words that they just said. And then, okay, so what I'm hearing is exact words. What that tells me is whatever the reframe is and where you're trying to take them. Um, number three, do um baby steps. So you go for the smallest decision first, not the biggest decision. Decision fatigue is real. And if a leader won't make the big decision of, you know, oh, I'm going to approve this budget, like go for the smaller decisions. Hey, do we agree that we're trying to achieve this goal? Are we even in the same page in the book of what's going on? Um, and it's like those little yeses. And then once all of that is aligned, then the budget in this example should be no problem to agree to. Um, and then the fourth one here, make it subtraction before you make it addition. So lead with what's coming off in a situation where you're going to be adding something or changing something or introducing a new process, at the same time something else is falling off of that list. It's semantics. Just say the thing that's coming off their plate first, because otherwise all they're gonna hear is more. Hear about what they're getting their time back and then sneak in there right after, fast follow, if you will, with how we're gonna get there. Um, even if it is just just one more 30 minutes that one time. Um, speaking for all the strategists out there responsible for their name on the meetings that are getting scheduled. I feel you. Um, and then I have I have a few others if you'd like to hear, but I just want to pause there because those are some of the ones that have helped me the most um it with being able to do it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Fire, fire feedback. Anthony, you got to go first.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I'm just so happy you you started with uh, you know, starting with the the small decisions first and working your way up to the big ones, instead of just saying, How do you eat an elephant? Which I'm just tired. I'm just tired of that being said, right? Like that's not strategic. We don't want to boil the ocean. We don't want to eat an elephant. Uh, let's do something actually doable. We'll just start with the little decisions first. And I loved that. So just yeah, good. Let's go.
SPEAKER_00You know, going into Anthony just praising product management. So, yes, thank you. All your product managers out there, Anthony now loves you and is one of you. It's fantastic, it's a new era. I'm loving every second of it. You should be too. There was a dark era before this, people go back and listen to 200 episodes. He's a change man, he's a change man.
SPEAKER_04Episode one after product management.
SPEAKER_00APL. The product management angle on this, like this is it's such an important strategic role. And it's largely because every single day, at least in like tech product management, your role is to define the what and the why for the team. And it's funny because everything you're saying, Brooklyn, can comes to mind for me for when I approach the team and I try to set the context for what we're trying to do. I never say, this is the strategy, guys. It's always like, hey, so uh we're not doing great on revenue this quarter. And you know, the reason is X, Y, Z. You know, we've tried to come up with what are a couple ways that we could look on at increasing revenue in the short term and then also the long term. This is where we think we want to start, you know, with these kind of enhancements. But like everything I just said there, and you guys heard it, it's just it's natural, it's realistic. It helps them build empathy with me of like, oh, Michael doesn't have it all figured out, but like, oh wow, the business needs help. Like, we've got to figure out how to do this together. And it opens the door to say, we need to figure this out together. Michael has some ideas, great, but then it's small decisions after that. It's like, okay, let's get the let's get the momentum moving. We're gonna start on some small things, short-term things, then we're gonna eventually build onto the long-term things instead of saying replatform everything now. We gotta completely restart. It's just like, no, no, no, some small iterations, build, measure, learn, see what type of outcomes we have. And I think I leverage that a lot on the business side too, when I'm when I'm pitching, when I'm talking about strategy with certain customers. It's never about strategy. It's all just about we want to help you get real value in your company. Help us understand what your goals and objectives are. And we're gonna come up with a way to show you that we can figure out how to build results in a short amount of time. Let's find the smallest possible piece of value we can do fast and let's prove this is the right direction. And it's funny because big management firms come in and they never sell that, right? They always sell the big thing as being like the silver bullet. But the way that we approach it, it's like it's good and it's bad because it works. And if you show momentum, it's great. But if you're working with someone that's going in the wrong direction or the their strategy is bad, what they're trying to do doesn't make sense, they're gonna realize that fast. And then you're like, there's no point working together. You actually got to go fix something else. And that's happened once to us before. It's like we did a small thing, and then we realized it has no value to what you're trying to achieve. We can no longer help you call us back when you actually need help, need help. So I love everything you said because it just it always makes me think through like the way we work and our roles and like how how can how can we use that to be better at what we do?
SPEAKER_04Absolutely,
Cascade The Message By Audience
SPEAKER_04absolutely. It's really hard when I talk about empowerment when it comes to how capable strategy is, and it's more than a 360 set of interviews or feedback. The information gets to everybody. If it's not doing anything, then it doesn't necessarily matter. And we need strategy as a, you know, my strategy word for the day that I'll throw out there my corporate fluff. We need to cascade the strategy, which basically just means if you think about it, I'm a visual person, stair steps, you know, it's gotta all ladder up to one thing, a pyramid, if that's a little bit easier for you to think about it that way. Um, and at each layer, um, a a mentor of mine, uh, Doug, I'm gonna shout him out, uh, taught me this. And he'll correct me if I've butchered the explanation here. But at each level, what we're thinking about is different. And so you have the people who are executing at one layer, that's gonna be one layer of the strategy. You've got people who are ensuring that the work happens, that's a different layer of the strategy. People that are setting the strategy that needs to make sure, you know, what work is the right work. And then you've got people who are setting the overall direction and vision. That's your long term, those are your executives, the things of that nature. And so trying to approach strategy as a truncated, just flat one thing is not gonna be successful. Just like if um I don't know, I don't have a fun analogy for this one. So, Anthony, keep me honest. Let me know if you think of a metaphor for this, but you gotta keep your audience in mind, essentially, in the same way that you would market to a particular avatar or profile or whatever language you want to use, consider your audience in day-to-day conversations. If your company has done a, you know, disc assessment or personality profile, whatever color theory they want to use, use that to your advantage and then speak to them at that level. If you're going into a meeting as me, you know, an engineer, I'm not an engineer, please don't fact check me on that. Um, but you're like, you know, I have the lens of executing the work, but I'm talking to somebody who's responsible for setting the strategy. I'm not gonna get in the weeds with them. I'm gonna talk to them about how this is impacting their layer. And vice versa. If I'm going in and I'm setting the strategy or I'm at an all hands and I'm speaking to the general populace of my employees, I'm gonna talk about what that looks like in their day-to-day, the tactical piece. And so being able to identify which layer you're interacting with is gonna help the communication be a lot more simple as to how this exact same information is being represented. Um, and that's something that I feel very passionately about people being able to do on their own. 100% believe in change management teams, change management professionals, strategy, you know, entire departments of strategy. I get that. But if you want something to be implemented and implemented well, something that can be leveraged, I feel like is more training on how to communicate that specific skill set. You do, you know, annual training for everything else. Like, why not have annual training on how to communicate in both directions? Um, when it comes to strategy. Ask for what you need and delegate what you need to happen. And that's my soapbox.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna no, that was great. I have a triggering statement for you guys, and I'm curious on your take. All right, I'm the CEO of our company. Well, everybody owns strategy. Oh my gosh. I'm done. I'm out of here. This is what contributes to the eye rolling. Like when when leaders do that, it's like, dude, they they funnel me tickets and I I get the tickets done. That's my job. I don't want to own strategy.
SPEAKER_03Well, if you don't know how to delegate, just say that.
SPEAKER_01Bingo, bingo. And you know, you you said you needed an analogy, Brooklyn, but I think the medicine still holds, right? Because when you're when you have something that's more than just like a runny nose and you go to the doctor for it, you know, there's diagnostics that have to occur. They do the investigation, they'll they'll figure out, hey, we're gonna put you on these two different things. Like this one's gonna do X and this one's gonna do Y. You don't gotta be a pharmacist to go understand the pills you're taking, right? Like you just gotta know, hey, as long as I take this one for 14 days and this one I'm gonna be on for the next couple of months, it should lead to regrowth healing, whatever's better, right? So, like you you have to, I love the speak to your audience bit. And uh, to your point, Michael, I feel like when the the CEO says that, they're just like, hey, let's go, let's go holistic and make a fix together. Like, I'm not gonna prescribe you anything. How do you what do you think will make you feel better? Like, what's your what's your cure for yourself? Like that doesn't work, right? Because you want the authoritarian doctor, the person who knows what they're talking about, to say, you're doing this and this, and you're gonna do it for this long, and this is gonna be the outcome. And if you if you feel weird two weeks from now, come back in and we're gonna talk to you about it and figure out like we'll make adjustments. But like the second you withdraw responsibility for strategy as a strategic initiator, you've lost, right? Like, no one's gonna take you seriously. To Brooklyn's point, I keep coming back to you. There's no trust at that point anymore. You're not the doctor anymore, you're just the feel-good guy who's like, hey, how do we all find this together? It doesn't work, especially in corporate.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh. That reminds me of a bit from Taylor Tomlinson when she was talking about her um, you know, her mental health diagnosis. And she had been, you know, taking, you know, different medications, doing different things. And then she came to her psychiatrist at one point was like, Hey, do you think, do you think I might be bipolar? And they're like, Oh, for sure. And she's like, Well, why did it take me sitting down and Googling my pills by myself to figure that out? That's kind of like strategy where we know that's what we're doing. We're just gonna spoon feed the different solutions. And then the difference is instead of Googling them by yourself, that's the chatter. Everybody's gonna talk to each other to then try and piece together a story. So that's what happens when you don't not I don't even like to say craft a story, tell the story that is true today, and then tie that to the future. But um that that's funny. I don't know if anybody else is a Taylor Tomlinson fan.
SPEAKER_01Uh first time, first time hearing the name, but I I'm gonna have to do some Googling of my own afterwards.
SPEAKER_04So uh I'm sure she'll love that I use it as a corporate strategy reference. Um I'm sure that was a part of her marketing plan.
SPEAKER_01We make everything work on corporate strategy. So all good, all good. I know we're we're coming up on the hour, and I don't want to run this meeting over. Any any final thoughts on the strategy side of things? And we'll I'll start with you, Bro.
SPEAKER_04I would say if you are somebody in strategy or would consider yourself to be a strategic thinker, and you have you're constantly frustrated by people around you not thinking in that way. The best thing that has saved me heartache is to just go back to the fact that it's probably a trust problem that you already know, but understand that it is wrapped in a communication situation and it's showing up a different way. People only have their own lived experience in reality, their pain is their pain. Meet that pain in a way that they can receive what it is you want to do. Do you want to be right or do you want to be effective?
SPEAKER_01That is so well said. Well put. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, well said. Yeah. I think the only thing I would add is yeah, if you're a leader, make it simple. Make it stupid simple that every single person in your company can get behind. You don't need fancy decks, you don't need slides that no one's gonna read. And in the world of AI slop, it gets even worse because AI is just gonna build things for you and you're gonna be like, wow, this is so cool. But the reality is it's like a three-legged stool is one of the easiest examples. And use something like that that anybody can just see and understand, and it's a self-fulfilling circle, and it just makes sense. And then lastly, yeah, trust your people. Don't come in with a plan, don't micromanage, say, hey, I brought you guys in for a reason. You're my team, you're gonna help me figure out how we do this together and hold them accountable too, saying, like, hey, Anthony, I need to trust you to do this. You're gonna be responsible for X percent of the strategy. You know, do you feel okay with that? What should our goals be? Like, let's build it together and then you can figure out how we actually get there. So leave room for autonomy and decision making so that you empower your team to actually go solve the problem.
SPEAKER_01The uh, the the marketer in me wants to share the last tip, which is know your audience, right? If you're if you're in an all hands and you're presenting the corporate strategy to your entire company, or maybe it's just the sales force, or maybe it's the development, RD and support teams. Know your audience, right? When you present that strategy, present what matters to them. Like we've already talked about making them feel like they're part of it, understanding where they fit that gives them confidence, comfort, and trust. Don't go into an RD all hands and present the strategy that only the salespeople care about. Tailor it to your audience because strategies are big things. You gotta cut it down into understandable, meaningful slices for the people that are executing it. So don't be don't be afraid to pair it back. Big picture, little picture. Tell that full story.
Final Takeaways And Where To Connect
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think we did it. I think we did it again. We've solved all of the world's problems in just about an hour's time. Thank you so much for joining us today, Brooklyn, being our first live on-camera guest. We're we're just so happy. We're thrilled.
SPEAKER_00We are. Thank you for having me. I told you this before, and I'll say it again. Like your original episode, when everyone just finds out I have a podcast or I'm talking to someone like, oh, cool, like I want to listen to an episode. Like, I send them yours because your journey from military to entrepreneurship to corporate to now back to entrepreneurship is just so cool. And also, like a mother, a wife, like so many incredible things that you've done in your career, and like just sharing your story, I think, has motivated a lot of people in our community. And just bringing tips like this. I'm not kidding, you're gonna people in the chat are gonna say, just replace Michael, just Anthony in Brooklyn from now on, occasionally bring in Michael to play some games and then kick him out because he brings zero value outside of that. So thank you so much.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely. Thanks for giving me a platform to nerd out on about something that you know isn't falling on the like I hate strategy ears. That's always a nice relief. Um, but I don't know. I just like medicine, too much of it, you know. I don't I don't know. You think you want me on here, but I will analogy everyone to death.
SPEAKER_01Are there any things so much? Are there any things you'd like to shout out or point folks to? Uh you've got the platform is yours.
SPEAKER_00You've got the you've got your own businesses now. Shout out what would people, why would people want to work with you? Whatever you think. You came on here and gave us some hot tips, brought value to everybody. So tell us paying you back.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Well, thank you. Uh again, Brooklyn Jones. I like to say I am in the business of transformation, and my two companies meet that on either end. So one is teaching them how to fish, and one of them is fishing for them.
SPEAKER_01Nice.
SPEAKER_04That being said, had to start with an analogy, of course. Uh, one is bespoke, and that's uh helping executives who are providing for a multi-generational household, three or more generations in one house. They're moving and they need to be able to do that without losing performance and losing care for their family. That's uh one of them. And then the other one, and that's more relevant to this conversation today, is strategy capable, coming at strategy from a lens of how are you building your own internal capability, your leadership, your teams to uh operate in a strategic way without having to bring in a snapshot in time, a strategy deck that you then have to figure it out. Um, and what that looks like today is specifically working with uh financial services leaders and RNAs to um be able to say, you know, I'm bonus all the time and I have all this capacity and I'm growing and it's great. I know exactly how to decide, and I'm not at all in survival mode anymore. So I help I help them get to that place. Um, but you know, having a conversation is, you know, giving your time. And so I welcome any just thought partnering conversations. I want to learn about your industry, meeting uh new people, all of that is makes me a better practitioner of what I'm doing in the rooms that I am in and helping people to be better. So the best place to find me is on LinkedIn, and that's where you'll find links to all the things and reach out to me there. Um yeah, try to keep it pretty simple.
SPEAKER_01We will include a link to your LinkedIn in our video show notes, everything. So thank you for joining us. Uh, we mentioned it earlier, but we met through our community, which is through a Discord. And uh, I do want to invite anyone. If you enjoyed today's show, you're like, hey, I think I want to be on that show one day and talk about my stuff. You can do that. Just join our Discord. It's super easy. Uh we have great conversations in there, we meet great people, and uh that's how things like this happen. Michael, what else do we got going on?
SPEAKER_00Like, share. We're on YouTube, we're on Instagram, we're on LinkedIn, we do it all. So definitely uh share. I think the biggest thing has been for us word of mouth. Like that's been what has brought a lot of great people to the community and just a lot of awesome guests we're gonna have in the future as well. So share with good people because that's what this is all about. Building a great community.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And uh just just remember no matter where you are, what you're doing, if you don't got a strategy, you don't got nothing. So go out and build it. Uh thank you as always, Brooklyn, for joining us today. Thank you to our listeners for listening in per usual. I'm Anthony. And I'm Michael. Brooklyn, you can close us out.
SPEAKER_04Awesome. And I'm Brooklyn, and you're on mute. Yes. Nail.
